International Society of Iranian Studies

Guest Editor's Introduction: Love and Desire in Pre-modern Persian Poetry and Prose
Author(s): Dominic Parviz Brookshaw
Source: Iranian Studies, Vol. 42, No. 5, Special Issue: Love And Desire in Pre-Modern Persian
Poetry And Prose (DECEMBER 2009), pp. 673-675
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of International Society of Iranian Studies
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40646789
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 Iranian Studies, volume 42, number 5, December 2009

Dominic Parvi^ Brookshaw

Guest Editor's Introduction

Love and Desire in Pre-modern Persian Poetry and Prose

As with many pre-modern literatures, love is a central theme in pre-modern

Persian poetry and prose. The perils of *ishq or passionate love inspire
pre-modern Persian poets to compose some of their most profound and lasti
poetry, whether mystical, profane, or a subtle and complex blend of the tw
With love comes yearning (most commonly ishtiyãq, but also shawq), both f
the Divine beloved, and for His earthly counterparts or representative
whether the Prophet, one of the imams, the royal patron, the idealized cour
beloved, or the alluring wine-server. Given the variety of possible belove
the lover's desire as portrayed in pre-modern Persian literature can range fro
one of selfless devotion and yearning for (re-)union with God or the earthly
beloved (vasl/visãl), to a much baser, lustful desire for sexual gratificat
{shahvat), often with a social inferior. The articles in this special issue refle
this diversity in interpretation of love and desire as found in pre-mode
Persian poetic and prose texts.
Taken as a whole, this special issue examines the themes of love and desire
Persian texts spanning approximately eight centuries of Persian literary histo
(roughly early eleventh to late eighteenth centuries), and includes analysis o
texts from eastern, western, and southern medieval Iran, medieval Musl
India, and texts from the early modern Safavid and Mughal periods. T
variety of literary genres - from epic and romance, to gha^al, ruba'ï and qasïd
to satirical, erotic, and biographical prose - is as diverse as the analyti
approaches adopted by the contributing authors.
Four of the five articles published here (those by Alyssa Gabbay, Franklin
Lewis, Sunil Sharma, and myself) are reworked versions of presentations ma
by those authors on one of two panels organized by me: one entitled, "Classi
Persian Literature", at the Sixth Biennial of Iranian Studies held in London i
August 2006, and the other, entitled "Love and Desire in Pre-modern Persian
Poetry" at the Seventh Biennial of Iranian Studies held in Toronto in Ju
August 2008. I have ordered the articles in a roughly chronological sequence.
The first article (and the only one to focus solely on heteroerotic texts) is b
Alyssa Gabbay. Gabbay examines male/female dynamics in three version
those of Firdawsï (d. 1010 or 1025), Nizâmï Ganjavï (d. ca 1209), and Am
Khusraw (d. 1325) - of the story of the Bahrãm Gúr and his slave g
Gabbay argues that each successive version of the story provides a progressive
more positive depiction of their relationship and, by doing so, comes closer
bridging the gender divide. Gabbay sees this as evidence for the emergence

ISSN 0021-0862 print/ISSN 1475-4819 online/09/050673 3 V' Routledqe

©2009 The International Society for Iranian Studies 1^ Taylor 6» FranJsGroup
DOI 10.1080/00210860903305988

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674 Brookshaw

a more egalitarian understanding of the male/female dichotomy over the 300 or

so years in question, and seeks to show how Nizâmï Ganjavï and Amïr Khusraw
deconstruct received notions of "male" and "female", moving towards a plain in
which the sexes are much less polarized.
From heteroerotic romance epics, we move to homoerotic love poetry, and to
Farïd al-Dïn 'Attar's poems in praise of Christian boys. Franklin Lewis explores
tales and tropes of conversion in 'Attar's poetry, in particular conversion engen-
dered by romantic attraction for the religious other. Lewis sees clues to the poet's
theology in his delicate interweaving of class, gender, and confessional adherence
in these tales. One particularly rich example of the encoding of religious and
social boundaries can be found in a body of ghav^ah written about the Christian
boy (tarsã-bachchá). Lewis traces the history of this homoerotic sub-genre, and
'Attar's particular treatment of the theme is juxtaposed with that of earlier
authors, and in relation to other motifs denoting confessional otherness and
of religious conversion from his own works, including the story of Shaykh
San'an who falls in love with a female, Christian beloved. Lewis discusses
the markers 'Attãr employs to construe Christian-ness, and analyzes these
symbolically amorous encounters with Christians as part of a larger discourse
of emasculation constructed around conversion, religious affiliation, and insuffi-
cient commitment to spiritual growth. Analysis of 'Attar's portrayal of religious
conversion and cross-confessional interaction, Lewis argues, can shed light on
the poet's conception of the specific religious traditions juxtaposed to Islam, as
well as his own beliefs about in ter- religious relations.
Tackling a number of issues highlighted in Franklin Lewis' article, my study
explores homoerotic references to Turks in the various prose and poetic works of
'Ubayd-i Zãkãní (d. 1371) with a view to arriving at a more nuanced understand-
ing of the Turk as depicted in the gha^a/s of fourteenth-century Shiraz. After
mapping the development of the celebration of desire for boys and young men
in medieval Persian poetry, and the centrality of the Turkish slave-saqf to this
desire, I present a detailed picture of references to Turks in 'Ubayd's more expli-
citly sexual quatrains and satirical-erotic anecdotes and prose works. I argue that
in order to reach a more complete understanding of the local, Shirazi Turk lauded
by Hãfiz (d. 1389), it is necessary to take into account 'Ubayd's more risqué, even
obscene references to Turks as gullible sexual partners, cash-hungry ruffians, and
sexually aggressive vagabonds. The necessity to consider 'Ubayd's satirical
works and erotica (whether prose or poetry) when interpreting Hâfiz's references
to Turks is borne out by the fact that the two poets were contemporaries,
composed poetry for the same royal patrons, were appreciated by the same
audiences, and therefore are likely to have influenced one another's writing.
The last two contributions to this special issue take us out of the medieval and
into the early modern period, firstly to Safavid Iran and then to the Persianate
world of Mughal India. Paul Losensky's article deals with two works by the
Safavid poet Muhtasham Kãshãní (d. 1588), namely his Nuql-i 'Ushshãq and
Risãla-yi Jalãliyja. Both works are a combination of prose and poetry, and are

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 Introduction 675

purported to be autobiographical accounts of the poet's tempestuous love affairs;

the first with a courtesan, and the second with a footman. Both Nuql-i 'Ushshãq
and Kisãla-ji Jalãliyya fall within the Safavid realist school, maktab-i vuqü* .
Through his close reading of them, Losensky uncovers what he calls a refined
"culture of eros and desire" which he argues stands in marked contrast to the
standard representations of literature and the arts in mid-to-late sixteenth
century Safavid Iran.
Finally, Sunil Sharma examines intricacies of the patronage system at the
Mughal court, and stories surrounding some of the Safavid poets who left Iran
to seek their fortune in India. Sharma examines two cases of reportedly improper
relationships between émigré Iranian poets and their royal Indian patrons (one
homoerotic, the other heteroerotic) as they are discussed in the Mughal anecdotal
literature of the eighteenth century. Interestingly, these stories, both shrouded
in intrigue and peppered with scandal, involve important royal personages.
Sharma discusses how these stories were embellished and crafted long after
the events they purport to recount, and argues that these anecdotes are most
useful to literary historians as windows on the concerns of the literary culture
of the period in which they were composed. The backdrop to Sharma's paper
is the broader context of tensions between the émigrés and their local counter-
parts at the Mughal court.
Any system of transliteration will have its critics. I have opted for as plain a
system as possible, based roughly on that used by IJMES, with the diacritics
removed, but the macrons (to indicate long vowels) intact. Persian quotations
appear in Persian script to facilitate easy cross-reference with the original sources.

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